The Noise Floor

It is thick, rotten. Like peach flesh stuck to teeth. Plaque. 

It drips down and

seeps into it. It

reeks.  

I imagine squeezing it, just enough for it to give, not enough for it to break. 

I remember killing girls all the time. I remember the sweetness before the stench. Women and women and men and women and women. I look into the corner and there is nothing there, only the cold wet slick that comes at these times. These times, they never seem to end. What times? Where are we? The girls come and they go. 

They wear red and lace and canvas. Oh, how it clings. Sticky, slick, wet. I remain here, stuck in the corner, all over again. I’ll ask the girls. 

It rolls down and down and it pools in my shoes. It’s a horror. 

Some of them would say it's gruesome. 

The girls? 

The girls.

The floor is tiled in black, shiny squares with little speckles of glitter in them. The tiles are too large. In the light it almost looks like a mausoleum. One day I was buried there. I lay flat and the cold gathers at the nape of my neck first. The floor remembered every spill but forgot every body.

Sometimes I can hear them on stage. They call me boring. Jackie said I spoke too quietly. Izumi said I listened too hard. The sound comes through the floorboards before it reaches the air. I slip between them because it is the only thing I can think to do if I want to take cover. I always wondered why there were so many colours. They liked to yell at me from the balcony. It is dark out there and the only place to find yourself is in between the floorboards. I remember. No one ever said anything nice about Jackie. Izumi likes Hennesy. I wonder where she’s gone.

The heart beats faster when the pump loses momentum. 

That’s what they said. 

Did it want to stop? 

Like heat through a stethoscope. 

Pump. Pump. Pump. 

It keeps going because it has to. 

  Straight into the chest. 

I can’t tell if I want it to end or if I want it to keep going. But it seemed like the right place.

My grandmother would tell me about these times from the back porch. The sun would still be hanging there, fat and orange, long after it should have gone down. But the heat stayed in the wood even after sunset. She sat with her sandals half-off and a cigarette burning between her fingers, dress stuck to the backs of her legs. Oh, these times, they never end! she’d say, flicking ash into the garden. The air gets thicker the more I breathe it. I have to ask for it. It doesn’t come on its own. But I never knew where she was talking from. It surrounds me, but it's never enough.

I sprawl myself out on the bed for you. The sheets are mangled because we like to roll around like we did as children. A button has come loose on the edge of the quilt so now it unfurls out. I will unravel the same way. Imagine a groin covered by a hand. I smear it on my face. They say it’s good for you. 

What’s good for you? 

Where would it have to be? 

The air would be thick and it would be dusk in the countryside but you could see the city with binoculars. The sky would stay the wrong colour. Someone passed the binoculars back and forth between us. The cicadas never seemed to tire. Sometimes we sit in silence. Only for a little while.

I have bites up and down my legs. They swell in the sweat. I wonder about the ecosystem beneath them. 

The girls are back now, but sometimes they come only to taunt me. 

One. Two. Three.The sound keeps time even when nothing is playing. Lindo will tell you all about it if you go to the back of the garden and knock on the shed three times. One. Two. Three. We sit on the edge of the bed and light up spoons. There is never any moonlight. Only green street lights. The walls hold sweat the way skin does. It feels like the old Mississippi. One. Two. Three.Mr Lindo was a madman. My mother never realised he would sneak in at night. But he was alright. My brother liked him. He just needed somewhere to sleep. That’s alright.

The body remembers its heat even after it leaves. We are cold in death. I can feel it now.  The floors are still sticky. 

I removed teeth many years

ago. The blood would pool in the crevices but sometimes

it wouldn’t clot. 

The girls come back every so often and we play pretend. Izumi and I play pretend. I wonder where she’s gone.

Sometimes, I see Jackie behind the curtains. It is torture. Yes, that’s what they used to call it. No one says anything about her. 

       She would paint her face white but she always looked purple to me.

No one ever spoke of her. This is where we go to hide. The tiles are still sticky.  One of them has started to crack. Beer and sweat have settled into them. Insects know the same places we forget. A shard has gone missing. Sometimes the moment breaks in the middle of itself. 

The sky is pink tonight but the sun stays yellow. Lindo would always say ‘she’. Who was he talking about? All the things I could do to get you to stay and all the things we needed to let go. These I file away because it’s easier than boiling tea in the cold. 

I remember the stench. Sometimes the girls from the other rooms would come over after their shifts. The walls always held a sweat. It was human. Concrete paved over skin. I don’t know why anyone comes here. I don’t know why I do.

You have to ask for it. It doesn’t come on its own.

It keeps going.